My own fragile sense of mortality means that I’m still adjusting to the fact that the original bands from the New Wave of American Heavy Metal — commonly mislabeled as “metalcore” — are now hovering somewhere around their tenth year of existence. As I Lay Dying are the latest band to hit the one decade mark, and while I can’t say I was one of the cool kids who has known about them since the release of Beneath the Encasing of Ashes, I do remember when I first heard Frail Words Collapse, and it really seems like it was just last week.

But enough about my own neurosis. The story here is As I Lay Dying’s tenth anniversary, which they’ll celebrate by releasing an album entitled Decas. Mercifully, it’s not just a lame greatest hits collection — instead, it will feature three new songs, covers of classics by Slayer, Judas Priest, and Descendents, and remixes of old AILD tunes by the likes of The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Ben Weinman, Big Chocolate, and Kelly “Carnage” Cairns. You can check out the first new tune, “Paralyzed,” below. It’s equal parts heavy and catchy, which is to say, it’s an As I Lay Dying song, and a good reminder of why the band grew to be so popular in the first place.

Decas will come out November 8 on Metal Blade, and you can already pre-order it here. And if that isn’t enough to give you your As I Lay Dying fix, the band will continue the celebration of their birthday with the ”A Decade of Destruction,” which starts at the end of November and will feature support from Of Mice & Men, The Ghost Inside, Iwrestledabearonce, and, maybe best of all, Sylosis, who I personally am absolutely dying (no pun intended) to see. Here are dates, courtesy of AP:

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BIG CHOCOLATE is a busy motherfucker. When he’s not touring as a DJ, remixing his own and other people’s songs, or working on Commissioner (with Mitch from Suiside Silence), he does a one-man band called DISFIGURING THE GODDESS. They’ve been around for a few years, but just dropped their debut full-length Circle of Nine. It’s definitely brutal as fuck, but I am not sure whether they are a death metal or deathcore band!! I think it is really important to label music, so I am asking for your help on this one.

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IMO the most important part of being a true metal fan is knowing your roots. There is nothing worse than a newjack poser who doesn’t know or care about the older bands who paved the way for the generations after them. For example, IMO you can’t consider yourself a real fan of Avenged Sevenfold without also being a fan of Pantera and 18 Visions/Velvet Revolver. I mean I love A7X but obviously they are pretty much just taking what those two bands did, only doing it a lot better. On the other hand, it also sucks when someone gets older and they stop liking stuff. I mean if you like Suffocation then you should also like Devourment, right?? But contrary to what you would expect, older metal fans do nothing but hate on newer bands.

Which one is right?? The younger fans, full of energy and enthusiasm, but unaware of the shitty bands that people used to like?? Or the jaded, bitter has-beens, with seemingly endless knowledge of irrelevant, music that nobody really cares about anymore??????

In this post I will do my best to tackle this topic and answer the question of which is better, NEW MUSIC or OLD MUSIC. I know it’s hard to compare things from different eras, but I think it will help all of us grow as metal fans!!

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Typical Tumblr user: airheaded teenage girl who listens to metalcore bands that have cute singers.

When it comes to music, teenage girls make the world go ’round. It’s a fact: they are the ones who obsessively fawn over every word out of a band’s mouth, go to every show within a 200 mile radius of their parents’ house, and most importantly, they actually buy stuff (whether CDs or merch). Before you rage, I’m not trolling– this is how it’s worked for as long as pop music has been around (and explains why D.R.U.G.S. sold three times more records than Darkest Hour last week). Basically, any band who ignores the social currency and purchasing power of teenage girls is a bunch of dumb-dumbs.

While Facebook and Bandcamp are great tools for streaming your music and communicating with your fans, I think Tumblr is the most interesting social media platform right now. It’s the closest thing we have to a magical window into the minds of the consumers who drive the music industry (teenage girls), but I haven’t really seen many bands/labels take full advantage of it.

In this post, I will discuss the dynamics of Tumblr culture, share some examples of typical content and draw a few conclusions about what it means for bands and labels who want to market their product to not only Tumblr users, but the lucrative market of teenage girls in general. Also, please follow my Tumblr to keep your finger on the pulse of contemporary youth culture!

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I’m going to put approximately as much work into this introduction as Zakk Wylde did the writing of the last BLS album.

I’m actually going to begin today with a video that I think is legitimately good, because I need to wash the taste of so much cinemetallic poo out of my mouth. The band is called Montezuma’s Revenge (you’d expect them to be of Aztec descent, but they’re actually Russian), the song is called “Dead Frost,” Vince suggested I watch it, and I’m glad he did. The animation isn’t amazing, but it still puts this clip way ahead of the pack.

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MUSICAL GENRES ARE DEAD // LONG LIVE POST-GENRE EXPERIMENTAL GENRES OF MUSIC

Most of you probably know BIG CHOCOLATE aka Cam Argon for his work as the world’s finest guttural vocalist, but that’s only one of the many facets of the guttural slam/dubstep/drum n bass/deathcore artist known as BIG C. Say what you want about him, but this cat is prolific —  if the 5 zillion EPs and demos he’s released with Perforate Carcass, Commissioner, Disfiguring The Goddess, Malodorous, and so forth weren’t enough to satisfy your craving for MOAR BIG C, he just dropped a new EP of dubstep/dnb/deathcore tracks (check it out here on Soundcloud)!

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After the jump, you’ll find Sergeant D.’s interview with Cam Argon, a.k.a. “Big Chocolate,” the wunderkind who is currently the vocalist for at least three different projects, including Disfiguring the Goddess. But first, please enjoy this exclusive debut of a new track, “Circle of Nine,” which will appear on DTG’s new album, tentatively scheduled for release sometime in March. We hope you dig it as much as we do…

And now, Sergeant D’s interview with Cam!

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FEATURING MEMBERS OF KYLESA, DARKTHRONE, BRUTAL TRUTH, KATAKLYSM, 3 INCHES OF BLOOD, TEXTURES, SWASHBUCKLE, THIS OR THE APOCALYPSE, DISFIGURING THE GODDESS, BURNING THE MASSES, CHRISTIAN MISTRESS, MISERY, AND GRIFTEGARD

For 2010, we decided to do something special as part of our regular end-of-year festivities here at MetalSucks — namely, ask musicians from across the vast spectrum of the metalsphere (or, in a few cases, the almost-metalsphere) what their favorite albums of the year were. Death metallers, thrash metallers, black metallers, stoners, grinders, and djenters alike graciously contributed lists to MS, and we’ll be running them in groups of ten to twelve musicians at a time twice a day for the rest of the week.

After the jump, check out the seventh group… we hope you enjoy seeing what some of metal’s heaviest hitters were into this year as much as we have!

(And please note that these are musicians and that they, um, have a lot on their minds. So some of ‘em named albums that actually came out last year. Please don’t freak out.)

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While these days metal fandom is basically just a contest to see who can fap harder and faster to obscure technical death metal, it wasn’t always that way. In fact, many of the bands that internet metal nerds regard as legendary icons today were either hated or ignored when they were at their peak — fellow oldz will know exactly what I’m talking about. In this post, I will remind us all what fickle, trendy conformists metal fans can be by taking a stroll down memory lane and recalling vintage popular opinion of a few of your pet bands (hint: it wasn’t good!).

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Reader Dan Metcalfe e-mailed me last night to let me know that Big Chocolate — who is already one of the busiest men in metal, even though I think he’s only like an ass hair older than the dudes in Black Tide — has started yet another project, this one with Suicide Silence vocalist Mitch Lucker. It’s called Commissioner, and they’re streaming their first track, “Consume,” right here.

And, uhhh… I don’t think this is anything I’d ever listen to. I don’t even know what the fuck you’d call this; it’s, like, death crunkcore, or something. It basically sounds like Nine Inch Nails if Nine Inch Nails was in no way, shape, or form melodic or radio friendly. So some of you may really dig this. And I’d give it another listen when there’s more of it… but my initial thought when playing the track was, “Ah-ha! I am finally an old man, for this makes almost no sense to me. Now why did I come into this room again?”

Check out Commissioner here. They don’t have any label deal or anything like that in place yet, so who knows what their future plans are.

-AR

Just in case Ozzfest, Mayhem, Summer Slaughter, Thrash & Burn, The Cool Tour, Scream Like You Mean It, and, to a lesser extent, American Carnage weren’t enough to keep you occupied this summer (to say nothing of all the regular plain ol’ tours goin’ on), yet another big package/fest tour has been announced: the Over the Limit tour. (And, yes, I realize the above song is actually called “Push it to the Limit.” But any excuse to listen to that awesome, awesome piece of music will suffice.)

The line-up, my thoughts on that line-up, and dates are all after the jump.

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You probably know Century Media for their work with groundbreaking, legendary artists like Stuck Mojo and My Own Victim, but they are also home to lesser-known bands like Lacuna Coil, Arch Enemy, Nevermore, Warbringer, Terror, and deathcore sensations Winds Of Plague and Suicide Silence. In all seriousness, though, I’ve worked with CM in one form or another since the mid-90s, and have nothing but good things to say about the CM crew. In addition to Despise You frontman/ CM warehouse manager Chris Elder, one of the many great people at CM is A&R guy Steve Joh. With the label’s 20th anniversary coming up soon, I figured it would be a great time to catch up with one of the nicest guys in metal and give the label some much-deserved props. Thanks to Steve for his time and help, and thanks to CM for being cool enough to send me promos when I was a teenager with a fanzine back in the day!

Note: I am a fan of both WoP and Suicide Silence. Knowing that they are lightning rods for the (negative) attention of angry metal dorks, I included their names in the headline for this post in hopes of attracting maximum viewership, and therefore giving the most possible publicity to Steve and the bands. Thank you for participating in this exciting social media marketing initiative.

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Cam Argon, a.k.a. “Big Chocolate,” is nineteen years old, and meanwhile, he’s the vocalist for at least three different projects, he’s a DJ, he’s in college getting his degree, and, oh yeah, now he’s directed the new Annotations of an Autopsy video, for the song “Bone Crown.” I mean, Vince and I have both been keeping really busy lately, working ridiculously long hours on a lot of projects both related to MetalSucks and not really related to MetalSucks, and this kid makes us look lazy. Cut it out with the being so productive, Cam! Slack off, watch some internet porn, take a nap for no good reason. Sheesh!

Don’t forget that AOAA are part of the <shameless plug>MetalSucks-sponsored Facemelter Tour with Dying Fetus, Arsis, Misery Index, and Conducting from the Grave. Get dates here. </shamelessplug>

-AR

As some of you may know, my favorite 19 year-old hottie isn’t Demi Lovato, it’s the internet’s own Cam Argon, better known as Big Chocolate. He’s the vocalist for Disfiguring the Goddess, Abominable Putridity, Burning The Masses, a DJ, and a criminal justice major. For more background on Big C, check out the interview I did with him on Metal Inquisition a while ago — otherwise, here’s some stuff off his YouTube channel.

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In December I used the logo of the band Disfiguring the Goddess for Completely Unreadable Band Logo of the Week. What I didn’t know at the time was that DTG and its mastermind, Big Chocolate (né Cameron Argon), already had a cult following. So I checked out Disfiguring the Goddess and while the music was maybe a litttttttttllllle too slam-y for my tastes (No wonder Sergeant D. is a fan!), there was no doubt that Mr. Chocolate is a talented vocalist.

Well, hey, guess what? The story has taken another twist now, as the band Burning the Masses has announced that Big Chocolate is their new front dude, and will be on their album Offspring of Time when it comes out on Mediaskare, probably sometime in the early summer.

And I’m digging what I’m hearing on BTM’s MySpace page. It’s definitely deathcore, but there’s enough tech-y goodness and songwriting prowess to put the band under the “All Shall Perish” column and not the “Oceano” column. I’ll be really curious to hear what they and Large Cocoa come up with.

Here’s some video of Big Chocolate in the studio with Burning the Masses:

In other Big Chocolate news, the man would be known in France as Grand Chocolat is holding a competition in which fans can lay their vocals down over a new Disfiguring the Goddess track, and then members of Annotations of an Autopsy and I Declare War will judge the winners. Get more details here.

-AR